Chapter 519: Murderous Nursery Rhyme (1)

At Chu Men's warning, I spun around. Ye Bing's face met mine, completely twisted and deformed.

Every shred of her disguise tore away in that instant. Like a madwoman, Ye Bing lunged at me, trying to shove me off the roof!

The roof of the Rehabilitation Area had no railing. Had I not already suspected her, the sudden ambush might have actually worked. A drop of over ten meters was fully lethal in the Dream Realm. Once my consciousness shattered, I would sink into an eternal nightmare, ultimately losing myself and becoming part of the Dream Realm.

Ye Bing's hands slammed into me. She must have sensed my suspicion, which was why she had used the pretense of investigating the case to lure Chu Men and me to a place where people had died, intending to finish us off.

"Die!" A piercing shriek rang in my ears, sounding utterly inhuman. I was only halfway through my turn when a violent force slammed into my back.

My body pitched forward, but since I was already prepared, I whipped out a Suppression Talisman without a second thought. The golden talisman slapped against Ye Bing, only stalling her for a fraction of a second.

"The talisman didn't work?" I hit the ground and rolled, scrambling away from the edge of the building to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Chu Men, glaring warily at "Ye Bing."

Her ambush thwarted, the woman in the light-colored dress stood on the raised ledge at the edge of the Rehabilitation Area. The corners of her mouth stretched unnaturally wide, warping her face into a grotesque, exaggerated smile. "How did you figure me out? I absorbed all of that woman's memories. Here in the Dream Realm, I know everything she ever experienced. There shouldn't have been a single flaw in my disguise. Yet, from the very first moment we met, you seemed certain I was a fake."

She still wore Ye Bing's face, but the expression painted across it was entirely alien.

"Your disguise was riddled with holes, and your story kept contradicting itself. Besides, if you were the real Ye Bing, she would have recognized me the second we met—even with the mask and the altered voice." I touched the mask on my face, its cold surface quickly calming me down. Now that all pretense was dropped, there was no point in playing along anymore. "You're the nightmare in Ye Bing's Dream Realm, aren't you? I have to wonder, what's your true form? And how exactly do you steal other people's memories?"

"You actually know about nightmares?" The woman by the ledge flashed a wide grin. "I thought two little bugs had wandered in, but it turns out to be a pair of wolves. That's fine, though. A game is only fun when there's a chance to lose."

Her tone abruptly shifted, and the smile vanished entirely from her face. "The person you're looking for isn't here. But we can make a bet. If you make it out of Heaven's Gate alive, I'll give you a few hints."

"Are you really that kind?" I kept my eyes locked on the woman. This was my first time dealing with a genuine nightmare. The last entity I encountered in the Dream Realm had been the Primal Destiny Divine Fiends. Compared to the Divine Fiends, I knew absolutely nothing about this woman's origins. Whether she was a wandering soul or a manifestation of negative memories and emotions, it was all completely unknown to me.

"Kind? Heh." The woman smiled brightly. "Perhaps. But my hints aren't that easy to get. I've never lost inside the Dream Realm."

"You already lost once just now." I kept my voice perfectly level, betraying not a trace of panic. I had seen far too many bizarre horrors. Even knowing she was a nightmare, my emotions barely rippled.

The woman sneered, not bothering to refute the point. "You feel very familiar to me. You must have appeared in the Dream Realm host's memories. Once I figure out your identity, I'll find the weaknesses in your personality. I hope you can still stand here and talk to me like this when that time comes."

Stepping back, the woman leaned half her body out over the side of the building. "The next time we meet, I'll make you beg for death!"

Leaning back, the woman disguised as Ye Bing simply let herself fall. With her black hair whipping in the air, she plummeted from the roof of the Rehabilitation Area like a fluttering paper crane!

A few seconds passed before Chu Men and I stepped up to the ledge. We peered over the side, but there was no sign of anyone below.

"I almost bought it. This Dream Realm really is perilous." Chu Men wiped nonexistent cold sweat from his forehead.

"Even if I hadn't stepped in, you should have been able to see through it. After all, you're the expert here," I said with a faint smile, though my expression quickly sobered. "Have you noticed? Ever since that woman left, the Dream Realm has been undergoing a change."

"What kind of change?" Prompted by my reminder, Chu Men finally started observing our surroundings. It didn't take him long to spot the problem.

The fog in the Dream Realm had grown much thicker. From up on the roof, we couldn't even make out the dirt road below.

"Why the sudden fog? Based on my understanding of dreams, the environment is entirely shaped by memory. The wider landscape shouldn't just change abruptly." The scene unfolding before us completely upended Chu Men's prior research. Seeing his reaction, I figured this was a first for him too. I couldn't rely on him at all.

"It probably has something to do with that woman. I'm ninety percent sure she's a nightmare." I touched my face, still leaving the mask on. It wasn't that I didn't trust Chu Men; I was just afraid that in some neglected corner, unseen eyes were spying on me right now.

"But a nightmare can't conjure up a heavy fog out of thin air. We already noticed when we confronted her that she needs to use the Dream Realm itself to kill."

"We've been looking at this too simply. We underestimated the difficulty of Ye Bing's Dream Realm. Maybe this fog-shrouded orphanage is what it was supposed to look like all along." Everyone's Middle Dream Layer was different. For a pure-hearted person, the dream would be relatively simple, but for someone hiding massive secrets and special past experiences, their dreams were usually exceptionally terrifying. And complex dreams full of negative emotions were exactly where nightmares loved to linger.

Stepping further back from the edge of the building, I silently gathered my thoughts. 'This is my first time encountering a nightmare. She appeared in Ye Bing's image. During the brief time we interacted, the abilities she exposed included reading the dream host's memories, disguising herself as people within the dream, clearly knowing the hazardous spots in the dream, and using tools and terrain within the dream to kill those who enter it.'

I had no idea what form the nightmare would take the next time we met. She could turn into Chu Men, or she could even turn into me.

"Streamer, what's our next move?" Chu Men squeezed up beside me, not forgetting to wave at the live stream to assert his presence.

"Our main goal is definitely finding Ye Bing. The nightmare's appearance actually revealed some information in itself. She must have seen Ye Bing. Following that logic, even if Ye Bing isn't in the Middle Dream Layer, there should be crucial clues about her left here. Let's search the orphanage one more time." Turning to head downstairs, I felt a faint sense of unease in my heart, though I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from.

"The Dream Realm has changed, so it's highly likely the places we checked before have changed too," Chu Men said, following behind me. "Crisis and opportunity go hand-in-hand. The exit to escape the dream might have already appeared."

"The nightmare won't let us leave that easily. Don't forget this is the Middle Dream Layer. Even if we escape, the Shallow Dream Layer is still outside. The nightmare might chase us relentlessly, and could even follow us out of the dream entirely, hounding us into reality." I walked in front, my voice muffled by the mask.

"Nothing we can do about that. We're at an absolute disadvantage in the Dream Realm. Just escaping would be good enough, so what's the point in overthinking it?" Chu Men gave a helpless smile.

"Actually, I have a permanent solution. As long as we succeed, this Dream Realm will no longer pose a threat." Stepping out of the stairwell, I used my Judging Eye to look into the distance.

"What solution?" Chu Men asked casually, not expecting me to offer any good ideas.

I took a deep breath and turned my head to look at Chu Men. "Using the Dream Realm to our advantage, the two of us will team up and kill the nightmare."

"Kill... kill the nightmare?" Chu Men stammered out, but soon his eyes lit up. "You really dare to think big! Go ahead, how do you want me to cooperate?"

I shook my head. My Judging Eye pierced the heavy mist, catching sight of figures bounding through the thick fog. I tilted my head to listen closely. "It's not time yet. What we need to do right now is make sure we survive."

A bloodcurdling song echoed across the fog-shrouded playground. The singers sounded like a group of wrongfully murdered children.

"Bamboo cage eye, bamboo cage eye."

"Little bird in the cage."

"When will you come out?"

"In the night of the dawn."

"The crane and turtle slipped and fell."

"Who is standing right behind you?"